Making FIRST Viral

[JohnFogarty]

Small businesses only with less than 50 employees.
I don't know of FIRST fits in that category. I would assume it could.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/wi...mate-ad-prize/

[mwmac]

Youtube Geek Week is Aug 4-10. http://www.eweek.com/cloud/googles-y...eek-week-event
Could be a chance to make it loud...

[Woolly]

Originally Posted by mwmac

Youtube Geek Week is Aug 4-10. http://www.eweek.com/cloud/googles-y...eek-week-event
Could be a chance to make it loud...

Brainiac Tuesday looks like the perfect day. Science and Education are synonymous with FIRST.

And for the record, I got 174 on the Geek IQ thing.

[Chadfrom308]

Well this sounds stupid, but what if we made the game like a zombie or end of the world game... like try to reach a goal before the world ends? It's something that is kind of trending now so it could be something that would help...

And I think we need a viral video or something so funny that it ends up on Tosh.0 as a web redemption

[JohnFogarty]

Looking through today's Geek Week videos I really think we missed out on an opportunity here...there were tons of robot videos that were getting high view counts today.

[Gigakaiser]

Regarding Youtube, it seems that if videos were named "team xxx's basketball-playing robot" or "High shcooler's frisbee throwing robot" rather than "team xx 2013 reveal", they would pull in more views. Darpa's video titles are very generic, leaving the potential audience wide open. A title change alone could have made 118's video viral I think - especially if the change mentioned the fact that their robot was built by high school students.

[Clem1640]

Originally Posted by VexisDarksteele

The problem is simply the fact that FIRST is not something that the vast majority of people can relate to. It's kinda like looking at the Teen Fiction section of any bookstore nowadays: FIRST is that lonely science-fiction epic amidst the sea of vampires, sparkly vampires, vampire werewolves, vampire fairies, werewolf fallen angels wearing tutus... and zombies. Some people will pick up that lone little volume, but most of those who will are people who already enjoy the science-fiction genre.

When I think of YouTube, the first two things that come to my mind are music videos and The Annoying Orange. That basically sums up what most viewers are looking for: Popular culture and comedy. The original Annoying Orange video has 137,578,367 views... And just what is it? Some basic animation/video manipulation skills, and mindless humor. It's that simple to get people's attention.

We need to find ways to make FIRST relatable to the general population. We need to breathe some humor into it, we need to incorporate things people will recognize (like current world events, urban legends, internet memes, etc.), and we need to hype up just how epic robotics can be (yes, this means both "epic wins" AND "epic fails." Sometimes the fails are more appealing than the wins. ) Then, once FIRST has a following on YouTube, teams can start getting more serious all over again.

It is really about our country's economic future, and people should care about this! I also agree that it need to capture peoples interest and entertain them, but these are not mutually exclusive objectives.

[protoserge]

1. Make a cool video
2. Post to reddit
3. Vote it up

Also, make a cool video or take some good photos and get it featured on Wired, Gizmodo (as well as the other Gawker sites with a lot of traffic), Huffington Post, local newspapers, etc. Telling a story of triumph and providing hope for the future will get the attention of readers and be shared throughout the Internet.

Viral is about understanding what strikes people in a way that they have to share. For instance, everyone loves cat videos. In fact, it's at least 64.3% of the Internet. Everyone loves videos of cats chasing laser beams.

I propose a modest adjustment to this approach: make a video of a dog catching frisbees from an FRC robot. However, don't just make it a robot shooting frisbees, make it a robot sidekick with an action hero dog (with a cape!). Perhaps it could fight criminals offending the Order of Operations or illegal Trigonometric Identities. I think that's good for at least 2 million views.

In all seriousness, I think getting a quality video that tells a story in under 2 minutes is key. One thing that connects everyone on a basic primordial level is the childhood dream. Developing a video that shows how FIRST has helped students achieve their dreams will help foster a working platform to capture an audience. Perhaps connecting with some successful FIRST alumni and detailing their story will help establish an outlet for mentorship and guidance.

[safiq10]

Or we could get a lot of celberties in a video that talk about how cool first is? wait that has already been done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYuOKb3gO7E

[JohnFogarty]

Originally Posted by safiq10

Or we could get a lot of celberties in a video that talk about how cool first is? wait that has already been done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYuOKb3gO7E

239,011 views. Must not have worked.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by JohnFogarty

239,011 views. Must not have worked.

I don't think it did either, but don't discount the prime time viewers that watched the full version live.

Without getting too philosophical, I felt it sent the wrong message and didn't actively spread the word of FIRST to those outside of FIRST.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

I don't think it did either, but don't discount the prime time viewers that watched the full version live.

Without getting too philosophical, I felt it sent the wrong message and didn't actively spread the word of FIRST to those outside of FIRST.

I just said the same thing to one of my friends.

"My robot is better than your robot." Really?

[safiq10]

okay i agree its not the greatest way to get it out there but it is something. If only we had a better way. WHY not break a world record. People love the world and records.

[Orion.DeYoe]

This is a great thread! I have been thinking about the same type of thing recently. How do we tell people about FIRST not only to get more students to join teams but also to build up a following and an interest in the competition?
I agree wholeheartedly with the people who have said that it needs to be easily understandable (and generally searchable) and very cool to watch.
FIRST has made many videos that try to promote the program. The one with Morgan Freeman was very good. However I'm ALWAYS disappointed that they don't show ROBOTS! The robots are extremely powerful and amazing! A good FIRST promotional video needs to have a good voice-over and great music, but the visual portion of the video needs to be taken up solely by robots from a variety of teams doing amazing things. Everyone keeps mentioning 254's climb. That would be great! People do need to be careful when editing these videos not to make them boring. A video of 254 climbing is actually going to be boring to people who watch it without knowing exactly what's going on (I've had that happen when I show it to people). The shots of robots need to be only a couple seconds long and they need to show the robot DOING SOMETHING, not just driving around or getting knocked over.

[synth3tk]

Excellent quote from another thread that I think could help us out.

Originally Posted by Dom20

But what would be really cool is if somehow a flash mob could be arranged to get a bunch of teams connected at the events. There's something that would be pretty awesome!